"A
troubling psychological drama about illicit
passion leading to tragedy."

Reviewed
by Dennis Schwartz

David Mackenzie's ("Young Adam") Asylum is adapted
from a book by Spider novelist Patrick McGrath; it's
set in the 1950s in a maximum-security asylum for the
criminally insane. Patrick Marber and Chrysanthy Balis
are the screenwriters who have done justice to the
book, but could have done more for the film if they
let things get a little more nutty and lurid--at no
time do we see sparks fly between the crazed heroine
and her dark lover. It's a troubling psychological
drama about illicit passion leading to tragedy, that
is formally presented as if it were an elegant
Masterpiece Theatre presentation but in reality has
nothing more up its sleeve than a tear-jerker
Hollywood melodrama.

Max Raphael (Hugh Bonneville) is appointed deputy
director of the depressing looking rural asylum just
outside London. He lives on the grounds with his
unhappy wife Stella (Natasha Richardson) and resolute
10-year-old son Charlie (Gus Lewis). Max's a
workaholic career-minded man locked into a loveless
marriage, who talks coldly to his wife and lives only
for a promotion. He's so uptight, that the one time we
see him in the bedroom at night with his wife he's
dressed in a suit and tie. Stella soon falls madly in
love with an inmate, Edgar Stark (Marton Csokas), a
sculptor who is being treated by Dr. Peter Cleave (Ian
McKellen), the asylum's longest tenured staffer who is
still bristling he was passed over for this position.
Peter vouches that Edgar is considered a safe risk to
work outside repairing the greenhouse, even though
he's been incarcerated for the last six years for the
brutal murder of his wife whom he bludgeoned to death
and then cut off her head in a fit of jealousy.
Despite realizing the danger and consequences if
caught, Stella continues the affair. When Edgar
escapes, Stella can't help seeing him in London. Her
affair soon becomes common knowledge and plays into
the hands of the ambitious Peter, who gets the coveted
post held by the retiring elderly director (Joss
Ackland) and promptly cans Max.

The melodramatics flow in a chilling manner but they
seem so stiff and artificial, as if drained of all the
passion in favor of a clinical presentation. Though
the ensemble cast deliver fine performances,
especially by a sinister Ian McKellen and Natasha
Richardson as a stifled woman burning with passion
from within, it's not enough to make this morbid film
come to life. It aims to serve not only as an
obsessive love story but to point its finger at the
so-called rational mental health servers who have such
power over determining who is sane and who is insane,
yet it seems only effective in stating that Natasha
made bad choices in men and led a self-destructive
life.